Xiaomi 13 Review – Balanced In Each Aspect

Well before we start this review of Xiaomi 13, I am pretty confident that it’s one of the best offerings by Xiaomi till date, just by going over the specs. The flagship performance, solid camera, beautiful design and display seem too good to be true.

Additionally, it offers a decent battery with superb changing speeds. I literally have nothing to criticise here at first look. It has everything I ever wanted an Android phone to be – a balanced phone – not too big, not too small.

But as you know, no phone is perfect…so where does Xiaomi 13 lack? Well, that is what we are going to find today in this Xiaomi 13 review. So let’s start without any further ado.

The Xiaomi 13 has been launched in China. The phone comes in four different variants: 8GB + 128GB variant costs CNY 3,999 (approx. Rs. 47,300), 8GB + 256GB variant costs CNY 4,299 (approx. Rs. 51,000), 12GB + 256GB variant costs CNY 4,599 (approx. Rs. 54,500) and 12GB + 512GB variant costs CNY 4,999 (approx. Rs. 59,000).

The phone is available in four colour options: Black, White, Field Green, and Far Mountain Blue. Xiaomi 13 is currently only available in China and will soon launch in India.

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The Xiaomi 13 packs the following items inside the box:

• Phone
• 67W charger
• Type-C cable
• SIM ejector tool
• Protective case
• Documentation

Before we talk in detail about the Xiaomi 13, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.36 inches OLED
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
• RAM & ROM: 8GB 128GB, 8GB 256GB, 12GB 256GB, 12GB 512GB
• Software: Android v13
• Rear camera: 50MP + 12MP + 10MP
• Selfie camera: 32 MP
• Battery: 4500 mAh
• Weight: 185 grams
• Dimensions: 152.8 x 71.5 x 7.9 mm

Xiaomi 13 is a really good-looking phone. I feel that the design and body are very similar to iPhone.You get the same boxy build with a flat frame and rounded corners. It’s a simple-looking phone with a futuristic design.

There are two different build variants of the phone: one with a ceramic back and the other with a leather back. Ceramic glass is better than normal glass and protects it from scratches and smudges. The leather finish is also good if you want a better grip on the phone.

I have the leather back variant which gives a more premium vibe when you hold it in your hands. Moreover, it’s pretty light, weighing just about 185 grams. You see the squarish camera unit on the top left which is the same as seen on the Pro variant. They do bump a bit, so you are better off using a case else it will wobble on a flat surface.

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The frames are made of aluminium and are flat, as mentioned above. It does offer a solid grip and sturdy build quality. You get tons of different colour options to choose from. There are standard Black, White, Field Green, and Far Mountain Blue models. And you also see it in limited-edition models including Hurricane Yellow, Flame Red, Jungle Green, Sapphire Blue, and Cement Gray colours.

Talking about buttons and ports, the right side has the power button along with volume rockers while the left side is clean. The top side has a secondary mic and an IR blaster. Lastly, the bottom houses a type-C port, primacy speaker, primacy mic and SIM card tray.

Not to forget, you also get an IP68 rating which will protect it from water and dust to some extent.

The cameras on the Xiaomi 13 are pretty good, to be honest. You get a triple camera setup which includes a 50MP main camera, a 12MP ultra-wide lens and a 10MP telephoto lens. The punch hole cutout on the front houses a 32MP selfie camera.

The main camera takes great photos in daylight conditions. The details were good and the photos were sharp. However, the colours were not punchy and in fact, looked a bit pale. I don’t know why but that’s the case. Even the skin tones didn’t look natural to me.

The low-light shots were average. The photos had decent dynamic range but the details were lost when you zoom in.

The telephoto lens does a good job of taking portrait shots. The subject was well focused and the background blur looked natural. Even while taking zoomed-in shots, the images didn’t lose in quality and details during day time.

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The ultra-wide lens also did a good job in taking wide shots. The images had decent details and the dynamic range was acceptable. The details around the corners were not good, as it’s with many other phones.

Coming over to the front, the 32MP camera takes nice selfies. The selfies I took were packed with details and looked sharp and crisp. The colour accuracy was nice as well and looked really punchy unlike the main camera.

Talking about video recording, the main camera can record 8K videos at 24fps and also 4K videos at 60fps. The video quality is great and the OIS helps to keep the footage stable and smooth. The front camera can only record 1080p videos at 30fps which is a bit letdown. It’s a good camera, I wish it had 4K video recording support.

Xiaomi 13 packs a 4500 mAh battery which looks a bit smaller than other phones in this price range but that’s not right. You should actually compare it with similar compact phones and then you will realise that Xiaomi has done a pretty good job.

For example, Samsung Galaxy S22 comes with a 3700 mAh battery while Apple iPhone 14 comes with a 3279 mAh battery. Talking about battery backup, you can easily get a full day of backup if you are a light user. Heavy users might need to plug in the charger by the evening time. I got about 5-6 hours of screen on time which is decent for a battery pack of this size.

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But you don’t need to worry about depleting the battery as you get 67W fast charging support. The 67W fast charge takes about 45 minutes to fully charge the phone. A quick charge of 17 minutes will juice up the battery to about 50 per cent.

Not only that, but you also get 50W fast wireless charging support. The wireless charging speed is itself faster than many mid-range phones’ wired charging speeds. I did not test it personally but Xiaomi claims that it will charge the phone in 48 minutes, but you won’t achieve that in normal conditions.

The Xiaomi 13 features an FHD+ 6.36 inches OLED display, unlike the 2K display of its elder sibling, Xiaomi 13 Pro. However, you still get the 120Hz refresh rate along with a peak brightness of 1900 nits. Also, it’s a flat display and not like the curved display you see on the Pro variant.

It gets plenty bright even under direct sunlight, and I was able to read and reply to texts without any issues. It’s one of the brightest displays in this price range.

Talking about the display quality, it’s vibrant and rich in colours. You get good details and sharpness, along with deep blacks. I think Xiaomi did a job by offering an FHD+ panel rather than 2K as the display is small, so you won’t notice much change in details and it consumes less battery than a 2K display.

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The bezels around the display are really slim and there’s just a punch hole cutout at the top. I watched some videos on YouTube and played games and my experience was really good and immersive. It has HDR10+ support so you can watch HRD content as well.

The display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus which will make sure that it doesn’t get scratched easily. Overall, it’s a great display to watch movies and consume content.

The Xiaomi 13 is powered by the latest flagship chipset which is Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and is paired with up to 12GB RAM and 512GB internal storage. There’s no need to explain what this chipset can do and how powerful it is. There’s a reason why it’s a flagship chipset.

You can glide through your everyday tasks without any lags or shutters. The apps open up quickly and switching between them was smooth. Multitasking was not an issue at all. The animations were smooth as well.

Even the resource-hungry apps ran without any problem. Coming over to gaming, it can run graphic intensive games at the highest settings. To test this out, I ran a couple of games including Genshin Impact, Apex Legends Mobile and Asphalt 9.

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With no surprise, all the games ran smoothly at their highest graphic settings. I played Genshin Impact at the highest graphics for about 45 minutes and the gameplay was seamless with no lags and frame drops. It’s not just about performance but also stability, and I am happy to tell you that the Xiaomi 13 offers a pretty stable performance for a long duration.

The phone did not heat much and the temperature was normal. I can guarantee that you will not get disappointed by the performance of the Xiaomi 13. It’s an absolute beast and can handle anything you throw at it.

Xiaomi 13 runs on the all-new MIUI 14 skin which is based on Android 13. I am really happy to see that Xiaomi has offered the latest Android version while some other brands are still going for the older version.

Needless to say, the MIUI 14 brings a bunch of new features and standard customisation options. You can still change the icons, theme, icons and text sizes. The new UI is smoother than before.

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Yes, there are some third-party apps pre-installed which is standard for Xiaomi phones. However, things are different with MIUI 14. The biggest update on the MIUI 14 would be that you can now uninstall most of the system applications that came pre-installed like the Weather, Calculator, MI Store and many more apps.

All in all, there are only 8 apps that cannot be uninstalled, which is crazy. Xiaomi has not made any promises on software updates yet but we can assume that you will get two major OS updates which will take you to Android 15.

The Xiaomi 13 comes with dual stereo speakers, which offers a nice audio experience. I watched some videos to test the speakers, and the audio was loud and clear. However, there’s no 3.5mm audio jack to enjoy your wired earphones.

The phone comes with 5G support, but as of now, we don’t know which bands it will support in India. Other connectivity features include WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS, IR blaster and NFC.

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Biometrics is handled by the in-display fingerprint scanner. It works like a charm and quickly unlocks the phone without any delay. It’s pretty accurate and snappy. You can also use the face unlock feature which works good as well, but is less secure.